"There is no shortage of opinions out there", Wray said of the agency that he has led for four months. "There is no finer institution than the FBI", Wray told a House Judiciary Committee hearing in response to questions over Trump's attacks on the agency, Xinhua reported. "The FBI that I see is tens of thousands of courageous men and women working as hard as they can to keep people they will never know safe from harm".

Days after US President Donald Trump, notorious for being very active on his Twitter feed, slammed the FBI, the bureau's director responded to Trump's attack at an oversight hearing.

Trump tweeted last weekend the FBI's reputation is "in Tatters _ worst in History!" and urged Wray to "clean house".

News reports last weekend said Strzok had been fired by Mueller as lead investigator in August over pro-Clinton text messages he sent to a Justice Department lawyer. Therefore, Jordan suggested that there had to be more going on with Strzok that was not yet known publicly - or even, in a more confidential or secure setting, known yet to members of Congress.

"The depths of this anti-Trump bias on the Mueller team just goes on and on", said Rep. Chabot.

President Donald Trump has dramatically different opinions about the Federal Bureau of Investigation - depending on who's being investigated, noted CNN anchor Jake Tapper.

In a letter to Wray on Tuesday, December 5 Senator Charles Grassley demanded information on Strzok's role in Comey's decision not to prosecute Clinton, his role in the early Russian collusion investigation, and any communications he made with negative statements about Trump or positive ones on Clinton.

Republicans repeatedly pressed him on reports that Mr Strzok tweaked the language of the FBI's finding from "grossly negligent" - the standard laid out in the relevant statute - to "extremely careless", which was the language that Mr Comey ultimately used in discussing the Clinton case with the public.

Wray, however, repeatedly deflected questions about whether Trump's decision would put him in legal jeopardy.